At a recent shareholder meeting, Kyehyun Kyung, CEO of Samsung Devices Solutions, reported that the company’s foundries are improving yield rates for advanced process nodes. The executive explained that because each new node adds more complexity, improving yield rates takes time, but provided no specifics.
Although the company has not officially confirmed it, the yield rate for the 5 nm node, which is used for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, is reportedly only 35%.
As a result, Qualcomm’s flagship chipset is both expensive and challenging to produce.
The same foundry produces Samsung‘s Exynos 2100 processor.
Samsung is also said to be lagging behind TSMC in terms of sub-5 nm yield rates.
Qualcomm may switch foundries for 3 nm chips as a result of this.
Apple has most likely already reserved a significant portion of TSMC’s 3 nm capacity for future Apple A and M chipsets, and it is not alone (e.g., AMD is working on 3 nm Zen CPUs).
The switch could happen as soon as this year, according to reliable leaksters, who claim that Qualcomm will shift part of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 production to TSMC later this year (and that the new chips will be marketed as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+).
